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Logan Receives Official R Rating

Logan looks like a very different film than your usual X-Men flick. The trailers have promised a darker, more meditative story than we're used to seeing from the merry mutants; the tone is reportedly more Western drama than superhero; and director James Mangold has said that the film will be lighter on continuity than the recent main X-Men film series adventures.

The biggest difference, though, has been its public courting of an R-rating. This has been talked about since Deadpool shook up the box office, with Hugh Jackman even taking a pay cut to secure the rating for Logan. And from everything we've seen so far, there's not been any consolations made in this area; the latest trailer boasted plenty of blood-soaked violence and an international variant even had Professor X dropping an F-bomb. However, the R rating had not actually been made official, until now.

In the wake of the new trailer release last week, Mangold revealed that Logan had yet to be officially rated R by the MPAA. Thankfully, he and fans didn't have to wait long for confirmation; just four days after the trailer launch, the director announced on Twitter that the film has officially been rated R for "strong brutal violence and language throughout, and for brief nudity".

It was never really in doubt that Logan would be an R, especially given how its trailers have shown a level of gore that wouldn't fly in a PG-13 movie. The lack of confirmation until now is more a product of how movies are rated than anything; the MPAA doesn't classify a film until it's completed, so up to that point the production is just working with a vague assumption of rating. Of course, knowing what is needed for certain ratings is a core part of the filmmaking process, with most blockbusters treating the PG-13 guidelines (it's the most lucrative classification) like a checklist.

The biggest bit of new information here is the mention of "brief nudity". There's been nothing in the Logan trailers or other footage to suggest this, so where it'll factor into the film is anyone's guess - though given the description, it sounds like any nudity will be a rather fleeting element. Think Jackman's own brief appearance in the nude in X-Men: Days of Future Past, for example.

Even though it's been a certainty since cameras started rolling, the official rating does highlight the freedom Mangold and co. have been given by Fox here; to make a Wolverine movie free of PG-13 restrictions is an exciting development for the X-Men franchise. Deadpool was going against the curve when it went with an R-rating - something that was up in the air for a long time before final classification - but now it seems like the studio is happy to approve an R if they think it can lead to a better (and as a result more profitable) X-Men film.